So what began in a wild wilderness ends in a green-ing
garden. There was not an earthquake; there was no
great light; nor was there a loud trumpet: instead,
we have been brought here this morning by pure hope.
Just when we thought there would be no more light in
the Jerusalem sky, the Bright and Morning Star
appeared, and the darkness has not overcome it. [1]
Though sorrow may last through the night, joy
inevitably comes in the morning. Rousing us from our
slumber this early morning is not death’s hold on
life, but the celebration of life made new; a new
day, a new opportunity to seek and encounter the
risen Christ.

The sun rose when we started singing our first hymn
at the sunrise service on Easter morning.

We find ourselves here early in the morning, basking
in the moment Christmas pointed to, the moment Holy
Week obscured, the moment the tomb reveals. “On
Easter morning we find the manger full of life; on
Easter morning we find the tomb empty of death. We
know the whole truth now, don’t we? We like Mary
Magdalene on that first morning know that death is
not the end, and that life as we know it is only the
beginning of Life. In the events leading up to this
moment— beginning with the Palms last Sunday,
carrying through the foot washing on Thursday, into
the death on Friday and the praying on Saturday— we
have learned that there is no suffering from which
we cannot rise. [2] It is the empty tomb on Easter
Sunday morning that delivers this hope, saying to
us, “You go and tell the others. Now!”

But before those words emerge, these words were
uttered, first by the angels, then by the risen
Christ himself: “Do not be afraid.” This calming
command comes from an authority laden with power
that is beyond the scope of world -- a messenger
who, this story tells us, rolled a huge stone, sat
on it (maintaining a rather matter-of-fact posture,
to be sure), shone like electricity, engendered such
magnificence that the guards swooned, and then had
the audacity to assert that there was nothing to
fear. With no need for fear, the women are then
instructed by the angel to move into their lives
with swashbuckling abandon. We, too, are so
instructed. Because God’s power has overturned all
expectations in our world, we have nothing from
which to coil into self-protection.

No longer is there reason to fear death; no longer
must we hide from the darkness of life; no longer
will we quake in anxious anticipation, awaiting the
unknown.

At the heart of the angel’s message, and central to
Jesus’s bold assurance against fear, is the message
of a new life—an unprecedented way of being and
existing in the world. Thomas Merton articulated
this sentiment well: “Christianity is a first of all
a way of life, rather than a way of thought. It is
only by living the Christian life that we come to
understand the full meaning of the Christian
message. The meaning of this message, the meaning of
the Easter morning, is precisely that God has come
to dwell in humanity and to show, in humanity, that
the sorrows, sufferings, and defeats inherent in
human existence can’ never deprive [our] life of
meaning as long as God is capable of deciding to
live as a child of God and consents to let God live
and triumph in our hearts.” Thus, to be a Christian,
to be an Easter people, is not only to believe in
Christ, but to live as Christ, and in a mysterious
way, to become united with Christ.

Morning’s
Resurrection song is a greeting call, an invitation to not be
afraid, but to engage our privilege, bearing witness to the good
news that God through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is
making all things new, even now, even in me and in you.

The story of resurrection is happening all around
us. Recognition may require us to get outside the
church, get our hands dirty in the garden that is
the world, but if we pay attention, if we practice
waking up to the God who is doing new things, we
will be overwhelmed by the abundance of life
unfolding before us, even presently, in our midst.

So friends, we come here, to the garden, not alone,
but together, together in the promise and in the
hope of the resurrection. We may have arrived tired
and battered, holes worn through our shoes from
walking through Holy Week, but we’ve made it.
Waiting for us in this space and time is the very
same person who met Mary then: the Risen Christ.
This morning, together we hear the good news that
Christ has been raised, not as an invitation to come
to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that
Christ himself is now living within and among us.

That my friends, that is where we leave this
morning, staring a new reality in the eye,
encountering a gaze that warms the heart, and a look
that lavishes love on our weary souls. The story of
Christ’s resurrection makes us mindful that every
moment and every event of every person’s life on
earth plants something in our soul. For just as the
wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each
moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality
that come to rest undetectably in the minds and
hearts of all people.

Let us then live together in resurrection,
acknowledging the return of joy, the echo of God’s
life, as it walks among us.